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All these things cost money in the case of lenses big money its no coincidence that Leaf, Sinar, Hasselblad etc rely on others for lensing their cameras. Leica properly spent far more on developing the S series lenses than it cost to develop the S2 especially as Kodak & Fujitsu were co-developers for key parts.
Perhaps Jim new camera wont use lenses instead using a pin hole? If however it does use lenses then they are just as key as a camera and if your a pro has invested heavily on glass you wont want to change to a completely new system unless its vastly superior than anything else and you can justify the outlay. Cameras relative to lenses are cheap particularly in stills.

A 'root mount', like the Red One, which fits deep into the camera body, which is possible without a mirrored shutter (as this isnt a DSLR), and is interchangeable with allen keys or something, and I can fix a Nikon mount, Canon, Leica, etc that intigrates with the 'smart' parts of all those lenses.

Further, I want the shutter to be corporal (sp) like medium format shutters are, so I can sync at any speed, and be as close to the lens base as possible.

Jim, I used to do some fashion photography and I agree with Akube on the larger viewfinder.

Keep it optical. Having a big screen on the back of the camera is great, but an optical viewfinder allows you to (hypothetically) remove the viewfinder and swap it out.

Rather than making a tiltable viewfinder (which will add a lot of weight) please look at the design of the Nikon F4S; the viewfinder is removable and can be swapped out for a waist-level viewfinder, which is great for studio photography.

Making them interchangable is also great, because you can have 2 viewfinders geared towards still photography, then you can make a monstrosity of a tiltable one for video acquisition.

Here's my question: who is this DMSC going to be targeted towards? I can see medium format and still life shooters flocking towards it, but again, the lens issue is a big one. Sure you can put focus mechanisms in the bodies, but Canon - and now Nikon - have discovered that autofocus motors in the lens (vibrating piezo elements, aka Ultrasonic and Silent Wave) are MUCH faster.

About size: how big will this camera be? If it's much bigger than today's big DSLRs, then it's not going to appeal to journalistic shooters in the field.

What about ruggedness and sealing against dust and moisture? One of the problems with a totally modular camera is keeping out foreign elements (imagine shooting in a war zone, for example). A Nikon pro DSLR like the D3 uses a magnesium alloy body and is well-sealed against dust and moisture. Those things can really take a pounding.

Having investigated Olympus (and other) 4/3 glass in great detail, I must say that this is something I've long wanted to see for Red. The 4/3 format has a 2x full frame 35mm equivalent focal length. The Olympus "Super High Grade" lenses are second to none for speed and amazing sharpness across the frame and zoom range. Check out their 14 - 35mm F/2.0 (28 - 70 35mm equiv.), 7 - 14mm F/4.0 (14 - 28mm 35mm equiv.), 35-100mm F/2.0 (70-200 35mm equiv.), a 90-250mm F/2.8 (180-500mm 35mm equiv.), 150mm F/2.0 (300mm 35mm equiv.) and a 300mm F/2.8 (600mm 35mm equiv.). There's even a 25mm F/0.95 from another manufacturer that's a bit soft wide open (as most fast lenses are), but super sharp from F/2.8 and up. There are some decent lens tests on slrgear.com and lenstips.com. They make Canon L series glass look, well.... weak! I just wish there were a higher pixel count 4/3 sensor available to complete with Canon on that level - something RED knows how to do!

Panasonic has just announced a 4/3 1080P camera for $5K at CES, but it's no RED: 8 bit, 1080 at 60i, 50i, 30P, 25P (Native) and 24P (Native). Why not give the buyers of these an upgrade path Jim?

Here's my question: who is this DMSC going to be targeted towards? I can see medium format and still life shooters flocking towards it, but again, the lens issue is a big one. Sure you can put focus mechanisms in the bodies, but Canon - and now Nikon - have discovered that autofocus motors in the lens (vibrating piezo elements, aka Ultrasonic and Silent Wave) are MUCH faster.

About size: how big will this camera be? If it's much bigger than today's big DSLRs, then it's not going to appeal to journalistic shooters in the field.

What about ruggedness and sealing against dust and moisture? One of the problems with a totally modular camera is keeping out foreign elements (imagine shooting in a war zone, for example). A Nikon pro DSLR like the D3 uses a magnesium alloy body and is well-sealed against dust and moisture. Those things can really take a pounding.

I shoot only fashion, but we use our Red MX all the time, for many reasons, including, very importantly, more film-like highlight roll-off and precise color than a 5D in stills mode, and more latitude for truly raw grading. An Epic would be a 100% all the time thing.